[pbs] Thanks for coming and What shall we do now?
Mary Sue Ittner
msittner at mcn.org
Tue Mar 17 15:35:47 EDT 2009
Those of us who attended the western winter study meeting of the
North American Rock Garden Society would like to thank the chapter who
sponsored this event which was exceptionally well organized and delightful.
Many of the members of this list volunteered their time to help make this a
success. As always it was so fun to connect names with faces even though it
is sometimes a shock when people don't look like you imagined they would. I
appreciated the opportunity to get to know some of the people on this list
better and to see people I had met in the past again.
Jane did an excellent job of selecting entertaining speakers. As one who is
trying every year to have fewer instead of more containers I appreciated
all those pictures of bulbs interspersed with other things in gardens and
Ian Young's comment that you stuck your finger deep in the soil and it you
hit a bulb then you moved to the right until you found an empty spot.
Another talk I appreciated was one on duplicating nature when you create a
garden so that it become more chaotic like nature is. He spoke to organized
chaos as a compromise. Having a rather wild garden it was nice to be
reassured. And I liked the talk where you were encouraged to find what will
be happy in your conditions taking into consideration both climate and
predators so you are much more likely to succeed. This encourages finding
native plants to use as well as plants that grow in areas that are similar
to yours.
I like Jane's idea of outings where you observe plants in the wild. That
has been one of the features of the two IBSA (Indigenous Bulb Association
of South Africa) symposiums I really liked. But I'd also like to encourage
regional opportunities to meet. We are too small to have chapters, but in
the past there have been informal meetings in Southern California open to
all and several in Northern California as well. And Jim Shields has invited
people to meet in the Midwest.
I'm hoping some of us who live in Northern California can find a way to
meet again this year.
Mary Sue
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